Reaffirming the Marine Corps' Presence Mission

This month the 11^th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) and the Makin Island Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) conclude a Western Pacific deployment that began in July 2014, shortly after the release of the Corps’s  Expeditionary Force (EF) 21 capstone document. This deployment could be seen as progress toward realizing that vision, as the unit’s actions were consistent with EF-21, which communicates how future MEU deployments will be shaped to support geographic combatant commanders. According to EF-21, expeditionary operations must provide “the recurring dividends available from soft power, deterrence derived from credible and capable response and the freedom of action created by expanded operational reach and tactical flexibility.”  In preparation for this deployment, Lt. Col. Coby Moran – commanding officer of the ground combat element, Battalion Landing Team (BLT) 2/1 – described leveraging his experience as a lieutenant in the 1990s.  His focus: “To get our thought process on ideas such as the strategic corporal and the three-block war. I want my Marines to think about being that expeditionary force-in-readiness where we need to be able to go from operating at the high-end to handing out soccer balls during humanitarian assistance, with our particular specialty being amphibious operations.”      

Understandably, much of the attention since war began in Afghanistan in the fall of 2001 has been on combat operations. However, it would be a mistake to think that effort encompassed the entirety of the Marine Corps’s capabilities.  Through informal surveys of his Marines, Lt. Col. Moran found that about 30 percent of his Marines had previously deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq.  Although the Unit Deployment Program (UDP) that deploys Marine task-force units on rotations to Okinawa, Japan was slowed to support Afghanistan and Iraq requirements, UDP missions continued to dispatch infantry and aviation Marines to the 31^st MEU for shipboard patrols of the Asia-Pacific region.  While many Marines are now embarking upon naval vessels for the first time, amphibious operations remained crucial as the 31^st MEU responded to humanitarian disasters – mudslides in southern Leyte in the Philippines in 2006, a pair of earthquakes in Sumatra in Indonesia in 2009 and  Operation Damayan in the Philippines in the wake of 2013’s Typhoon Haiyan.

Building Capacity and Dealing with Contingencies

In summer 2014, the 11^th MEU trained with its Malaysian Armed Forces counterparts during the Malaysia–United States Amphibious Exercise 2014 (MALUS AMPHEX 14) on Sabah in the eastern Malaysian island of Borneo. In October 2013, Defense Minister Hishammuddin Tun Hussein expressed Malaysia’s intent to establish a marine force pulling from all three services of the Malaysian Armed Forces, and that they were keen to work with the Marine Corps in this effort. This kind of engagement topped a list of priority initiatives within the Marine Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF) that the Commandants Planning Guidance identified for Headquarters Marine Corps to address.  Specifically, it underscores that “building partner capacity is a key capability of forward-deployed MAGTFs and [USMC] must clearly define [its] capabilities and determine [its] institutional capacity for what is an increasingly important component of our National Defense Strategy.”  Such security cooperation leverages the forward-deployed MEU, engages a partner nation in an area of its security emphasis and reinforces a tenet of the 2015 National Security Strategy, which identifies Malaysia as a country the United States has a “deepening partnership” with and one it seeks to strengthen in Southeast Asia.  

“The Marine Corps getting back to theater security cooperation is important, new for some of us, but particularly important for the Pacific theater and the Central Command (CENTCOM) area of responsibility,” said Lt. Col. Moran.  After completing MALUS AMPHEX 14, the 11^th MEU steamed for the Persian Gulf and entered the 5^th Fleet Area of Operations (AO) in mid-September.  Once the Makin Island ARG was on station, the air component, including Marine Corps AV-8B Harriers, immediately began operations to support coalition efforts as part of Operation Inherent Resolve. This activity included strike missions and the conduct of non-traditional intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance flights over both Iraq and Syria.  During the 1991 Gulf War, support base options were limited to Saudi Arabia or a theater sea-base, according to Lt. Col. Moran. Today, however, U.S. force have access to bases in the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia – with whom the 11^th MEU conducted Exercise Red Reef – and even military installations in Iraq. “Our continuing engagement in the theater over 20 years has led to a mature policy within CENTCOM that has created dividends for us. With the naval component playing a key role in theater, we now can posture ourselves in other places and are not just tied to a sole mission in the Persian Gulf.”   

The fiscal 2016 budget proposal suggests strong support for the quick reaction role of the Marine Corps.  It fully funds the Corps’s crisis response activities, providing essential support to geographic combatant commanders and necessary funding for the congressionally directed expansion of the Embassy Security Group.  The ongoing importance of the mission to secure diplomatic facilities in the region was quite clear as the decision was made to evacuate the American Embassy in Sana’a after the Yemeni government fell in January 2015.  The proposed budget also fully funds the Special Purpose MAGTFs (SP-MAGTFs), including the unit tasked for crisis response to CENTCOM that was established in September 2014.  With MV-22B Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft and KC-130J transport assets in theater to flexibly respond to a range of regional crisis situations, the Marine Corps’s expeditionary presence buys decision-makers time and space in a volatile part of the world.  Whether land-based Marines forward-deployed with air assets or Marines embarked aboard amphibious shipping, General Dunford’s guidance is clear: The USMC will be “the most ready when the nation is the least ready.”     

Justin Goldman is an Associate Research Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) and a Pacific Forum CSIS Young Leader.